For the purpose of this application, treasury functions may include receiving payments, facilitating payments, stopping checks, etc. Facilitation of payments may include facilitating wire transfers or providing access to lines of credit. It should be noted that payments may be in different currencies and may require currency conversion.
Wire transfer or credit transfer is a method of electronic funds transfer from one person or institution (entity) to another. A wire transfer can be made from one bank account to another bank account or through a transfer of cash at a cash office.
Central bank wire transfer systems, such as the Federal Reserve's FedWire system in the United States typically operate as Real Time Gross Settlement (“RTGS”) systems. RTGS systems provide the quickest availability of funds because they provide immediate “real-time” and final “irrevocable” settlement by posting the gross (complete) entry against electronic accounts of a wire transfer system coordinator.
A bank wire transfer may be effected as follows: The entity wishing to do a transfer approaches a bank and gives the bank the order to transfer a certain amount of money. An international bank account number (“IBAN”) and/or other codes are given as well so the bank knows where the money needs to be sent. The sending bank transmits a message, via a secure system (such as SWIFT or Fedwire), to the receiving bank. The message provides payment instructions. The message also includes settlement instructions. The actual transfer may not be instantaneous: funds may take several hours or even days to move from the sender's account to the receiver's account. Either the banks involved holds a reciprocal account with each other, or the payment must be sent to a bank with such an appropriate reciprocal account, a correspondent bank, for further transfer to the ultimate recipient.
The payment process may require initiation via an internal system. After a payment is initiated it may require one or more levels of approval. Initiation may be a manual or a partially manual process. Conventional confirmation of payment initiation or approvals may require multiple phone calls, emails, text messages or any other suitable means of communication. Tracking and display of wire transfer payments at any stage of the process in a general ledger system may be difficult.
In particular a networked mobile device such as a smartphone, Iphone™, Ipad™, Antroid™ device, Kindle™ or any other suitable device may be used to initiate or approve one or more steps of the payment process. Mobile devices typically have limited screen sizes and touch screen inputs. Therefore, a system that facilitates completing, displaying and tracking one or more of these steps on a mobile device would be desirable.